Conventionally, service providers can provide wired services and wireless services. However, there is no convergence of wired and wireless services. For instance, wireless service providers offer text messaging and video share functionalities to their subscribers. These features allow wireless subscribers to do messaging and video share among other wireless subscribers. Also, Internet Protocol (IP) services, such as phone (e.g., Voice over IP (VoIP)), Internet, and IP Television (IPTV), can be offered by wireline broadband service providers. There also can be phone services provided via the plain old telephone service (POTS).
Further, many utility providers have begun to deploy smart meters to residents. These smart meters are equipped with a machine-to-machine (M2M) chipset that can send meter readings to the data centers of utility providers. The smart meter with a load balancer not only can save operational costs, as there is no need to dispatch a technician to do meter reading every month, but also can allow utility providers to dynamically adjust/balance peak hour electricity load.
Thus, conventionally, wireless services are processed through wireless interfaces and wireline services are processed through wireline interfaces. While providing services in this manner is adequate in many cases, there are a number of inefficiencies and a number of conditions that are not adequately considered and addressed. For instance, due to incompatibility of IPTV standards, there have not been scalable solutions to send messages or perform video share with IPTV users. Also, utility providers (e.g., water company, gas provider, electric provider, etc.) typically do wholesale purchase of the wireless services to support smart meters from wireless service providers, but the Quality of Service (QoS) of this wireless service is normally difficult to guarantee due to a variety of reasons, such as bad weather conditions, macrocell congestion, etc. Further, use of the remote meter reading by utility providers has caused many complaints by end users, who claim that their monthly bills from the utility providers are inaccurate.
It is desirable to enable efficient message sending and video sharing by IPTV users. It is also desirable to provide reliable communication of information related to meter reading to remote data centers of utility providers. Further, it is desirable to facilitate ensuring accuracy and verification of remote meter readings by utility providers.